


Optical intimacy

by nancelot



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Cecil is Inhuman, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-27
Updated: 2013-07-27
Packaged: 2017-12-21 13:02:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/900625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nancelot/pseuds/nancelot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carlos adjusts to Cecil's unorthodox sensory organs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Optical intimacy

Cecil was sleeping next to him so blissfully that a new shared nightmare must have finally been broadcasted to Night Vale's citizens. It had been... a while since the last one. _A while_ was the most precise expression Carlos had at his disposal right now. He had given up measuring time for the time being because it simply took up more resources than Carlos had at his dispense. He had been forced to push Project Clocks aside in favor of some more urgent matters, such as solving the mystery of sometimes liquid air. 

In any case, however long it had been it had been long enough to make Cecil fidgety and nervous. And seeing Cecil fidgety and nervous had worried Carlos immensely. Not only was he concerned for Cecil's well being, of course, but also for his own, and the whole town's, for that matter. After all, nothing short of direct contact with the station management seemed to faze Cecil, and therefore Carlos had assumed that whatever made Cecil nervous would drive anyone else insane from fear. When questioned about this, however, Cecil had told him that it was nothing much, really. He just hadn't been sleeping well because the sudden disruptions in the schedule of usually regular nightmares made him uneasy. The answer left Carlos relieved and puzzled in equal measure. One more item to his ever growing list of Things To Be Figured Out.

He had gotten to witness Cecil's sleeping problems at first hand. The time the nightmares stopped coincided with the time sharing a bed with Cecil was becoming a regular part of Carlos' nights (and some of his days, too, if they both had the time). Cecil would wake up several times a night, covered in cold sweat, horrified by the lack of horror in his dreams. And Carlos would wait patiently and let Cecil run his fingers through his hair until he was calm enough to fall asleep again.

This night was different. Cecil slept peacefully, undisturbed, a faint smile playing on his lips. Carlos was happy for him, he really was. His happiness was, however, somewhat damped by the appearance of an extra eye on Cecil's forehead.

Even though Cecil had no longer trouble sleeping, Carlos' body had gotten used to the routine of waking up every now and then to check on him and so he opened his eyes to find the gaze of Cecil's new eye fixed on him.

It was much larger than Cecil's other two, considerably more human, eyes. It took up most of his forehead. It was a different color from the other two as well. A shockingly bright blue iris. And a large pupil that maybe had a sort of orange tint to it, although it was difficult to say for sure in his dimly lit bedroom.

Carlos cataloged all these things to keep himself from freaking out. It wasn't helping much. Cecil was clearly still asleep but the eye stared at him, unblinkingly, sending a shiver down Carlos' spine.

He shook Cecil by the shoulder. The eye on his forehead blinked. There was no other response. 

Carlos shook him again, harder this time.

"Cecil?" he whispered. There was a hint of very real panic in his voice that took him by surprise. He was getting more freaked out than he had realized.

Cecil's relatively normal brown eyes opened reluctantly and consequently the blue one on his forehead closed, leaving behind no traces of its existence. Somehow that was even worse. Knowing it was lurking there, hidden.

"Cecil?" Carlos whispered again.

"Yeah?" The Voice of Night Vale was low, rough from sleep. Some extreme fans of his show who hadn't yet lost their right hand in library fines would have happily given it away to hear it just like that, just once, oh it was all they needed to die happy. Carlos knew this for a fact. He had read some fan letters the first time he had seen Cecil's apartment. Cecil used them to cover up holes in his wallpaper.

"Your forehead. There was an eye. On your forehead. A third eye, Cecil. You have three eyes."

Cecil rubbed all three sleepily with the back of his hand and sent a disgruntled tattoo of a cat further up his arm until it got to the crook where it curled up and settled back to sleep. The octopus tattooed on his chest looked like it might have been annoyed, too, but they were difficult animals to read.

Cecil turned on his stomach and got up on his elbows, making it easier for him to look at Carlos. "Okay. I'm awake now. Come again?"

"Your forehead," Carlos repeated and gestured at the general area frantically. And, when Cecil gave him a blank look, he added, feebly: "You have three eyes."

"What- oh. Oh. Yes. I do." He leaned in closer to examine Carlos' forehead in turn, mildly intrigued. "You don't?"

Carlos was taken aback by his nonchalance. 

"Um, no."

"Are you sure? It took me a while to notice, too. This one", he poked at his forehead not at all gently and it made Carlos' stomach lurch, but didn't seem to cause Cecil any discomfort, because he kept on going, cheerfully, "this one only opens when the other two are closed so it's been difficult to spot."

"Yeah, no, I definitely have just the two." At least he hoped so. Carlos found he was less and less sure of things after each day he spent in Night Vale. Cats defying the laws of gravity had gotten to him the most.

Cecil shrugged, obviously ready to leave it at that and go back to sleep.

Carlos hadn't lived in Night Vale quite long enough to be able to be that calm in the face of anatomical anomalies. He still kept eyeing Cecil's forehead apprehensively, but even so, he had to admit it did pique his curiosity.

"Can I- Could you show it to me again?"

Cecil smiled and, as he obediently closed the eyes Carlos was used to, the skin on his forehead parted and the new acquaintance blinked back into existence.

It hadn't ceased to be nightmarishly terrifying. But Carlos also found it rather beautiful - nice-to-look-at kind of beautiful as well as what-is-this-marvellous-new-thing kind of beautiful. The latter was the kind he tended to appreciate more but he had to admit he wasn't completely unmoved by its haunting, otherwordly physical beauty either. He moved his hand tentatively. The eye followed the movement lazily and then fixated on his chest.

"Can you see with it?"

"Kinda. It's a bit hazy. Like, I'm not a scientist or anything, but I don't think it's your everyday eye."

Carlos wasn't going to argue with him there. 

"What does the world look like through it?"

"Well. Everything is blobs of color. Mostly red and yellow, or blue and green. Red is for hot and blue is for cold, as far as I can tell. You are perfect even as a blob of yellow and red, by the way."

"Thank you", Carlos answered, automatically, before what Cecil was saying really sunk it. "I mean, wait. Does that mean- Are you telling me you have thermal vision?"

"Yeah, I suppose I do."

That was more than enough to fill his scientist's heart with kiddy euphoria. And with some doubt about his own sanity. But mostly kiddy euphoria.

"That is fascinating, Cecil. Truly. You're unprecedented." Cecil switched eyes again and beamed at him as if it was the sweetest compliment Carlos could have given him. And maybe it was, in Cecil's books. "Do you have any other senses you wouldn't call everyday?"

Cecil considered it for a moment.

"My left ear can hear smells?" he suggested, finally. He sounded unsure of whether or not that was the kind of thing Carlos might be looking for.

Carlos stared blankly into Cecil's fairly normal eyes. His brain wasn't sure what to make of that statement. Which he could forgive himself. It was, after all, 4 am. Probably. He wasn't going to get into _that_ now.

"Right. Okay. We'll save that one for breakfast."

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written a fic in 3 years. But Night Vale has dragged me back into the fandom park, kicking and screaming. I suppose I'll be staying for a while.


End file.
